I Have Got To Get ICS Off My Droid 4

ICS has basically ruined the phone for me as all of the aps that I use regularly (alarm clock, browser, rocket player,etc) have been modified or broken in some fashion. Even the interface is just poor.

I'm brand new to the idea of flashing my phone and I looked in the [HOW TO] Restore your Motorola Droid 4 (XT894) to stock [Windows Only] thread, but it clearly says not applicable to ICS.

I'm desperate to roll the phone back to the previous OS, but am not sure what I'm looking for to do it.

Premium MemberDeveloper

Have you tried Factory Resetting your device and setting it back up now that ICS is on it? That corrects a LOT of issues most people have with the in place upgrade. The UI is much better, the browser is better, pretty much everything is better so perhaps a Factory Reset would help you out.

Staff Member

Welcome to DroidForums CherryBrigand. Unfortunately, it is impossible to go back to gingerbread. Like tcrews mentioned, doing a factory data reset will solve at least 90% of your problems. See this thread for help with backing up your texts, call logs, etc.

I felt the exact same way when ICS hit my RAZR. My phone went from something I loved to use, to something that was a chore to use. I finally did three FDR's back to back and installed the .215 leak. This made a huge improvement, it is at least useable now.

While some people have had a good experience others have not. For me it wasn't a matter of "getting use to it" it was a matter of my phone becoming very buggy and quirky. For example; your cursor shouldn't jump all over the place while trying to type, my Max battery should last longer than 2 hour screen times, my phone should vibrate when it is on vibrate and many other things that aren't something to "get use to" these are bugs/defects that should not have been there.

Staff Member

BaSHa, did the FDR's fix those problems because a new fdr should have fixed all those things. I think the biggest fault of Motorola/Verizon is not making people aware that an fdr should be done. In past major os upgrades, (eclair to froyo, froyo to GB), you knew that an fdr was important and necessary. And if I remember correctly, one of those upgrades did an fdr as part of the upgrade. It is absurd for Motorola/Verizon to think that such a major os change would not require an fdr.

BaSHa, did the FDR's fix those problems because a new fdr should have fixed all those things. I think the biggest fault of Motorola/Verizon is not making people aware that an fdr should be done. In past major os upgrades, (eclair to froyo, froyo to GB), you knew that an fdr was important and necessary. And if I remember correctly, one of those upgrades did an fdr as part of the upgrade. It is absurd for Motorola/Verizon to think that such a major os change would not require an fdr.

Sent from my DROID RAZR Maxx using Droid Forums

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I've come to learn that vzw and many many other big corporations don't care about the consumer as long as we pay our bills they don't care at all.

BaSHa, did the FDR's fix those problems because a new fdr should have fixed all those things. I think the biggest fault of Motorola/Verizon is not making people aware that an fdr should be done. In past major os upgrades, (eclair to froyo, froyo to GB), you knew that an fdr was important and necessary. And if I remember correctly, one of those upgrades did an fdr as part of the upgrade. It is absurd for Motorola/Verizon to think that such a major os change would not require an fdr.

Sent from my DROID RAZR Maxx using Droid Forums

Click to expand...

It helped all of those problems, but wouldn't say it it's fixed completely. I can usually kill the battery on my Maxx with about 6 hours of screen time.

The cursor still randomly jumps when trying to type (like this post here). I haven't tried to see if it vibrates now or not.

I have been on .215 for about 4 days now, I did clear the cache after installing .215 (via recovery menu) but haven't done a FDR yet.

I guess I'm not out of anything but some more time to do another couple of FDRs.

Jsn I'm not trying to blame anything. ICS might be fabulous on the SIII or some of the other devices, but that doesn't change the fact that ICS has some issues on the device that I dropped $300 bucks for. The device I paid for worked extremely well, unlike the one that I now fight with on a daily basis.

Staff Member

If you still have a problem with cursor jumping after you do an fdr, then I would say it is a hardware problem because an fdr should fix that.

For your battery, make sure you are not on global data... go to settings --->more... (under data usage) ---> mobile networks ---> network mode ---> select LTE/CDMA. If you are in a weak 4g area then LTE mode will drain battery very fast. You will want to put it in 3g only mode. Install LTE on/off from play store for a quick way to do that.

I appreciate everyone's feedback and when I have some spare time I'll definitely follow the steps in a few of the responses, but thus far I entirely disagree that ICS is better at all than stock Droid OS. It's some simple things:

1. The snooze space for the alarm clock is now 1/4 of the screen instead of being 90%. This and 'updated' version of the ap. so nothing I can do about.
2. Rocket player no longer responds to bluetooth headset controls when the phone triggers lockout/sleep. Now I have to unlock the phone to advance a song or go back. Hopefully resetting and reloading will fix this
3. I used to be able to download podcasts from websites by simply clicking on the link and clicking 'save link as'. Now the browser only allows me to save the image of the button to the file rather than the file itself.
4. Now when i hold the home button down on the home page it doesn't show me the other homescreens so that I can pick one to go to, it shows the aps that are open.
5. There's now a good 1/2 second latency in responding to bluetooth controls from my headset. Hopefully resetting the phone will correct this as well.

There's more like this but you get the point. Number's 2 and 3 are the ones that most upset me and I now can no longer use the phone like I want to use it.